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Product Description
Who is my father? The question haunts Harley Columba, a feisty 14-year-old living in Lenape Lakes, New Jersey, only forty-five minutes outside of New York City, but four zillion light-years away. She's convinced she's adopted, since there's no way those two psychos downstairs could possibly be her parents. Harley has never seen her birth certificate. All she knows is that she was born in New York City. When Harley stumbles across a note signed Papa loves you forever and a day tied around the neck of an old harlequin doll, she's convinced it's a gift from her long-lost father. She dreams of this real father who will rescue her from the constant rage of her alcoholic father and bitter mother. Pushed to the edge, Harley begins a search for her real father that takes her from the suburban backroads to the pulsing streets of New York City, where she confronts the truth.
Amazon.com Review
"'What was your name again?'
'Harley... Harley Columba.'
'Harley. Like the motorcycle, eh?'
'No, Harley, like a person.'"
Fourteen-year-old Harley is dead sure that "drunken dragon and his fire-breathing wife" she shares a house with cannot be her real parents. And when she finds a doll with a 12-year-old note signed "Papa loves you forever and a day"--not in her father's handwriting--she knows she's on to something. Her academic and social life begins to spiral down as she pursues her genetic mystery and rebels against her restrictive parents. Soon she's alienated her best friend, hooked up with a drug-dealing crowd, and is watching her grades plummet. Only her remarkable talent as an artist (and the recognition of this ability by a few adults) keeps her from spinning completely out of control. But this Harley won't stop until she's reached her destination--or runs out of fuel trying. Cat Bauer's powerful first novel of a defiant adolescent girl's search for identity, both creative and personal, will ring true for teenagers everywhere. She hits on all the hot topics: identity, family relationships, drug and alcohol abuse, school achievement, domestic and emotional violence, friendship, sex, and love. (Ages 12 and older) --Emilie Coulter
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